1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of vessels with internal walls.
2. Background Art
Vessels with one or more internal walls are commonly used in various industries, e.g. the petroleum industry, or the food industry. The internal wall may be used as a panel to divide an internal volume of a vessel into two or more separate volumes. The internal wall is positioned at an internal section of the vessel and an outer periphery of the internal wall is sealed against an internal cavity wall of the vessel.
If the internal wall is watertight, the internal wall allows to store a fluid in one of the separate volumes when sealed within the vessel.
The internal wall may comprise a filter allowing a passage of a fluid. For example, a fluid comprising an aqueous phase and a solid phase may flow inside the vessel through the filter: the solid phase may be retained at the filter of the internal wall and a purified fluid mainly composed of the aqueous phase may be recovered at an output of the vessel.
A filtering action may also be performed by the vessel system with an internal wall supporting a coalescing polymer. Such vessel system may be used for separating an oily phase from an aqueous phase. An emulsion fluid comprising small oil droplets within the aqueous phase may flow through the vessel. The oil droplets may adhere to the coalescing polymer at the internal wall and may coalesce to form large oil drops. The large oil drops are then entrained by the flowing of the emulsion fluid. The large oil drops may be isolated from the aqueous phase more easily than the small oil droplets. Such a filtering vessel is described in the international application WO 02/20115.
Whether the vessel system is intended to contain a liquid, or to filter a fluid flowing through the vessel, the internal wall needs to have its outer periphery sealed against an internal cavity wall of the vessel. Such sealing is usually performed using nuts and bolts.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a vessel with internal walls. A vessel system 107 comprises a vessel 101 inside of which are located a plurality of internal walls 102. A cap 105 at an end of the vessel 101 allows to provide an opening of the vessel 101. A fluid may flow through the vessel 101, from an input opening 114 of the vessel 101 to an output opening 115.
A seal between an outer peripheral of each internal wall 102 and an internal cavity wall of the vessel 101 may be achieved by providing bulkhead rims 106 along the internal cavity wall. Each internal wall 102 may be fixed against the corresponding bulkhead rim 106 using a plurality of nuts 104 and bolts 103.
The internal walls may need to be removed out of the vessel during a dismantling operation. For example, in a case in which the vessel system is intended to be used as a container for a fluid, the internal walls may be removed to allow washing the inside of the vessel system. The dismantling operation is also necessary for a vessel system that is used as a filtering system, as represented in FIG. 1. If a solid phase or a liquid phase is retained at filters, the internal walls supporting the filters may be regularly removed for cleaning. For an internal wall supporting a coalescing polymer, the coalesced oil drops are entrained away of the internal wall, but the internal wall also needs to be regularly cleaned with a liquidizer.
The removing of the internal wall requires a human intervention to dismantle the nuts and bolts. Similarly, once the dismantling operation is performed, a human operator installs the internal walls in the vessel.